For some years now, the poster who goes by the name of ''Textusa'' has refused to publish posts which pose questions she either cannot or would prefer not to answer.
Textusa likes to claim that she withholds posts because they contain abusive language. In fact this is rarely the case - usually they simply point out the flaws in her ridiculous notions
So if she refuses to publish your posts and you want to have your say, send them to me. I'll put them on here for you

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Friday, 14 September 2018

Settling Scores.

Shortly before the launch of Kate's book, members of the McCann camp used an extraordinary description of the purpose of the book.Kate intended to use the book, they said, to ''settle scores'', particularly against the Portuguese police. As we have already discussed, the police were not the only people with whom she had scores to settle and her reasons for writing about those people as she did are unclear. I can actually understand her taking her temper out on the PJ - for the sake of her furniture, if nothing else - but the other people she was snotty about? No, there really was no excuse.So who came in for the sharp edge of her tongue?Well, the police obviously did, at all levels, with Amaral picked out for special abuse. From the arrival of the first officers who she charmingly referred to as Tweedledee and Tweedledum to the PJ officers who she described as 'morose' while slagging them off with a vengeance:

I know as well as anybody that one shouldn’t judge people –
or perhaps places, either – on appearances, but it all made me immensely
nervous. I was appalled by the treatment we received at the police station that
day. Officers walked past us as if we weren’t there. Nobody asked how we were
doing, whether we were OK or needed anything to eat or drink or to use the
bathroom. Our child had been stolen and I felt as if I didn’t exist. I’ve tried
to rationalize it since: maybe they just couldn’t imagine how it felt to be a
parent in such circumstances, or maybe they couldn’t speak English and it
seemed better or easier simply to avoid us. Whatever the case, it was a
horribly isolating experience.

Mr Amaral, of course, was one of the major scorees

Not sure how I feel about seeing Mr Amaral – for the first
time ever, I hasten to add! I know I’m not scared but that man has caused us so
much upset and anger because of how he has treated my beautiful Madeleine and
the search to find her. He deserves to be miserable and feel fear.

Maybe it's just me, but isn't that an appalling thing to say? To actually want another human being to be miserable and frightened for basically doing their job? The irony is that the book and the court action was all aimed at punishing Mr Amaral, at making him suffer. In the end, they lost and most of the pain they inflicted upon themselves.Mrs Fenn and Yvonne Martin were clearly other people Kate felt she had a score to settle with. This is particularly difficult to understand as all either woman did was try to offer help. In the book, Kate doesn't even bother to name them, which seems even more discourteous

Then a lady appeared on a balcony – I’m fairly certain this
was about 11pm, before the police arrived – and, in a plummy voice, inquired,
‘Can someone tell me what all the noise is about?’ I explained as clearly as I
was able, given the state I was in, that my little girl had been stolen from
her bed, to which she casually responded, ‘Oh, I see,’ almost as if she’d just
been told that a can of beans had fallen off a kitchen shelf. I remember
feeling both shocked and angry at this woefully inadequate and apparently
unconcerned reaction. I recollect that in our outrage, Fiona and I shouted back
something rather short and to the point.

So a lady came out to help - she offered the use of her phone - and Kate and her pal basically told her where to go. Charming. Couldn't be anything to do with Mrs Fenn's recollection of the crying child, could it?

Not having slept for some twenty-six hours I was starting to
feel quite jaded but my mind was teeming with horrific images. A middle-aged
British lady suddenly materialized beside me and introduced herself. She
announced that she was, or had been, a social worker or child protection
officer and insisted on showing me her professional papers, including, I think,
her Criminal Records Bureau certificate. She asked me to sit down on a low
wall, plonked herself next to me and told me she wanted me to go through
everything that had happened the previous night. She was quite pushy and her
manner, her very presence, were making me feel uncomfortable and adding to my
distress.

David was standing nearby. Concerned, he took me aside and
pointed out that we didn’t know who this woman was or what she was doing there.
He reassured me that I wasn’t obliged to speak to her if I didn’t want to. And
I didn’t want to. Whoever she was, and whatever her credentials were, it was an
inappropriate intrusion. And something about it, something about her, just
didn’t feel right. I was glad I extricated myself. This woman would pop up
several times in the days and months to come and I still don’t really know who
she is or what she was trying to achieve.

I think you know very well who she was and what she was trying to achieve, Kate. She was a senior Child Protection manager and she was trying to help find out what happened to your daughter. You would not have had the right to walk away and refuse to speak to her in the UK, but for someone who would frequently complain about the way the investigation was conducted, one would have thought the arrival of possibly one of the most experienced people in the field would have been welcome, not a source of distress.Robert Murat presents Kate with something of a challenge, given that he was also an arguido, but again she never loses an opportunity to stick the knife in

When one of the GNR officers came over to request more
details about Madeleine and any distinguishing features she had, this man
stepped in to translate.

I was holding a photograph of Madeleine, which
he asked to see. As he studied it, he told me about his daughter back in England
who was the same age, and who, he said, looked just like Madeleine. I was a
little irked by this. In the circumstances, it seemed rather tactless, even if
he was simply trying to empathize. I didn’t think his daughter could possibly
be as beautiful as Madeleine – though of course, as her mum, I didn’t think any
other little girl could be as beautiful as Madeleine

Then of course there was the contingent of UK officers sent over to act as police liaison. She didn't think much of them, either

That Monday evening, completely exasperated, we lost it with
the liaison officers. Within a few seconds of arriving they were telling us,
‘We’ve had a very frustrating day today.’ It transpired that they’d had to
spend the whole day without an interpreter. In other words, it had been a
complete waste of time. We were raging. ‘Why did you have to spend the whole
day without an interpreter? If you haven’t got one, then get one! This is our
daughter’s life, for Christ’s sake. We don’t have days to waste and she
certainly doesn’t. And if you can’t get one, then let us know and we will.’ I
couldn’t believe it.

I could go on, but I think you get the gist.Interestingly, I was also asked about the people Kate actually thanked in the bookThey all have one thing in common. Their belief in the abduction storyShe thanked the locals who attended church and soothed them with platitudesShe thanked the Leicestershire police and other UK forcesShe thanked people for buying the book and the various people who helped them put the book deal togetherBut the people who received the biggest thanks of all were the rich and famous who gave or pledged money or served a mean strawberry vodka.

. I resisted the urge to run around the table and throw my
arms around him. Instead I stammered out my gratitude. ‘Thank you, Brian, thank
you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.’ My heart was doing mini leaps
for the first time in months.

This
grass-roots support firmly underpins the higher-profile help we have been so
fortunate to receive from those in a position to bring funds and influence to
our search for Madeleine. We cannot begin to express our thanks to the wealthy
and successful people who have come to our aid and showed the courage to stand
by us when many others ran a mile.

There was no specific thank you for the Portuguese police or the people of the area who gave up their time to search for Madeleine. Nor was there a specific thank you to Mark Warner.The biggest thanks of all she reserved for one person. Gerry.Next time, we're going to be looking at this passage from the book, so get your questions in now

It has been far more upsetting and damaging, frankly, to
find ourselves let down by people in positions of trust, the very people who
ought to be acting in Madeleine’s best interests. Unfortunately, there have
been a few of them. Another revelation that appalled us was the existence of
individuals whose lives seem to be governed by how they can turn any situation
to their own advantage. If their personal agenda is not their prime focus, it
is never far behind. They might even be helping, or at least seeming to help,
but all the time they are calculating what’s in it for them. There are
journalists and ‘criminologists’ I could name whose interest in Madeleine has
far less to do with recovering an abducted child than with profiting from her
misfortune. They continue to offer their services and ‘expertise’ to promote
themselves and make money, often muddying the waters in the process.

You wonder what drives some of these people. Avarice? The
need to feel important? Or perhaps something lacking in their lives? Perhaps
they are just consumed by a sense of worthlessness and hatred. Maybe some human
beings are just born that way.

17 comments:

The last paragraph is the best bit of self analysis the sainted kate has ever done. She deserves to be miserable and feel fear but unfortunately that fate befell madeleine. Its hard to believe something or someone is being covered for though...never before or since has there be so many pr and media types employed to look for an abducted child!

That last paragraph reminds me of Kate McCann herself.. I think she actually revelled in the publicity..Did she happen to mention how Gerry and herself had let Madeleine down from the 2nd night of that holiday..The book is quite telling..

Great analysis NT. Her wording is just unbelievable at times, and as Jules says, the whole book is very telling.

"Our child had been stolen and I felt as if I didn’t exist" - Err, you don't exist Kate, not when your baby has 'disappeared off the face of the earth'. Any normal human would hardly even register when they showered last. When your kids need you, you don't exist. Sorry about that.

"Not sure how I feel about seeing Mr Amaral – for the first time ever, I hasten to add! I know I’m not scared..." - Scared? Why on earth would you be scared Kate? Hmm?

"I didn’t think his daughter could possibly be as beautiful as Madeleine" - oh honestly. Fuck off. Is this the time for a pissing contest? Vile.

"Another revelation that appalled us was the existence of individuals whose lives seem to be governed by how they can turn any situation to their own advantage. If their personal agenda is not their prime focus, it is never far behind." - Still feeling like she didn't exist, Kate McCann took to the mirror to have a word.

What comes through most strongly in the book is that the thanks and plaudits are in the main reserved not for those who did the most to try to find their lost child, but for those who, for one reason or another, believed them.

I don't know if any of you will remember a famous case in the UK, usually referred to as the A6 murder, in which a man and his girlfriend were hijacked by a man with a gun who, after having them drive around for some hours, made them pull into a layby, where he shot and killed the man and raped and repeatedly shot the woman, before dumping their bodies and stealing the car leaving her for dead. She survived, although paralysed, and picked him out of an ID parade.His name was James Hanratty and to cut a long story short he was convicted and subsequently hanged, in 1962.

His family insisted he was innocent and the case was taken up by many famous people including the writers Ludovic Kennedy and Paul Foot. They even succeeded in getting the case referred to the Court of Appeal. For many years it was the most celebrated miscarriage of justice case on the books.

Eventually DNA techniques were developed and the two pieces of evidence believed to hold the DNA of the killer were tested and compared with samples from Hanratty's surviving relatives. The expectation was that they would show a miscarriage of justice had occured.

Instead, what they showed was a familial match.

On that basis, the Lord Chief Justice ordered an exhumation and DNA from Hanratty was obtained which proved to be a 100% match. Hanratty, who had been held up as a miscarriage of justice for so long, had been the killer after all.

The point is, it matters not how much support one has, or the nature and high profile of that support. The truth is the truth and at the end of the day, that's the only bit that matters

Hello, NT. Yes, it was a repulsive campaign by the BBC/Private Eye/Guardian/Islington gang - repulsive in its self-certainty and even more repulsive for its snobbery to such utter untouchables as the police, you know those common chaps who give you speeding tickets and eat their peas with a knife.

But what's more relevant is that Hanratty vehemently denied everything, right up to the moment of his execution. There are some things people lie about because their shame is so deep that they can never, ever, admit them, at least while their mums are still alive...

Textusa has such bad manners. She always says she will correct any mistakes - well she posted two ancient articles about Gerry McCann and then said "What are they living off if he's only just gone back to work?" It was from 2007! So I left her a message and all she did was delete the comments, no ''thank you'' or acknowledgement. She can hardly have her finger on the pulse if she thinks he's been off work all this time

It has been far more upsetting and damaging, frankly, to find ourselves let down by people in positions of trust, the very people who ought to be acting in Madeleine’s best interests. Unfortunately, there have been a few of them. Another revelation that appalled us was the existence of individuals whose lives seem to be governed by how they can turn any situation to their own advantage. If their personal agenda is not their prime focus, it is never far behind. They might even be helping, or at least seeming to help, but all the time they are calculating what’s in it for them. There are journalists and ‘criminologists’ I could name whose interest in Madeleine has far less to do with recovering an abducted child than with profiting from her misfortune. They continue to offer their services and ‘expertise’ to promote themselves and make money, often muddying the waters in the process.You wonder what drives some of these people. Avarice? The need to feel important? Or perhaps something lacking in their lives? Perhaps they are just consumed by a sense of worthlessness and hatred. Maybe some human beings are just born that way.

-------

But surely Kate is talking about herself and Gerry here? How they let their daughter down. How they used Madeleine as 'a good marketing ploy'? How they shamelessly courted the media and exposed their twins to media glare? How Kate, Gerry and their friends refused to help Portuguese and refused to take part in a reconstruction. It goes on and on. Yes, the parents did indeed exploit the 'situation Madeleine found herself in'. In what way, exactly, did Kate and Gerry look after their daughter's best interests?